You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears and kindness that can kill
I will choose a path that’s clear, I will choose freewill

In the Yahoo! league, Sioux? I’m the commissioner so I can edit the league as I see fit. Since the one we do is entirely Rangers fans I decided to include Face off win %, hits and blocks because we all talk about that minute garbage. If I could have added zone starts I would have!

You can edit your lineup daily. All the categories are head to head against your opponent, so you just have to have more (or less) than your opponent to win that “stat point”. No Bettman Bonus points for tied categories.

For instance, if one team has 14 goals for the week, and the other has 10, the former gets 1 point. If both teams have 14, they both get 0.

Nanny has chosen 12 categories, so the max points your team can have in a given week is 12.

No problem. Yes, you want to set your lineup to get the maximum number of players on any given day. It’s a good idea to diversify your lineup (ex. have players that are eligible at C and on the wing).

Also, I think you need to have 3 goalie starts in order to qualify for the goalie categories. This way, you don’t sit all your goalies if you get a shutout in the first game of the week. Not that anyone here would do that.

Henrik reportedly seeking maximum CBA 8 year term, $8.5 mil per. No wonder management feels under no pressure to come to an agreement until they see what’s what with performance, new pads, injury, etc., etc.

I would overpay Cally. he is worth more to the Rangers than any other team. if he hit UFA, he is going to get 6 mill a year. I would give it to him now. Girardi’s game I have grown to appreciate, but I would not go big dollars on him.

Staged fights are stupid and I think the old school “goon” idea is being evolved out of the game as new playing styles take over. I don’t ever, ever want to see fighting removed. I just want to see more of the John Moore type fights and less of the “hey, you wanna go after the puck drop?” type fights (Even though they are fun).

Rob,
Hank, and any other player for that matter, is only serious about one thing when it comes to his contract. getting every last penny he can. so if the Ranger offer 5 yrs 8 mill, and Nashville offers 6 at 8, guess what, he’s gone. it is always about the money.

I love the “real” fights, two guys ticked off at each other, drop the mitts and go. But those are rare now. Two goons fighting is ridiculous, — even if I enjoy the fight itself, just as the fans do — and that’s what will ultimately get fighting banned. Probably sooner than later.

First, I am not in the school of thought that fighting leads to greater injuries than just playing the sport of hockey. Second, I think that if you play hockey for your life and make it your living you are assuming the risk that you may suffer severe injury. The same way fisherman, loggers, farmers, mechanics and other laborers suffer severe injuries. For example, my uncle’s were lobsterman (pronuounced “lawhbstermen”) a while back and they took some serious pounding in their back, shoulders and hips.

Regarding staged fights, I think it’s probably nearly impossible to legislate it out of the game of hockey. Therefore, you stop looking for instant fixes in hockey and you go back to what worked forever: allowing the game to police itself. Boarding (like Kaleta on Richards) is far more devastating than fighting and you still can’t legislate it out entirely.

Take a look at him personally and listen to Bettman’s limp-wristed phonics. In a million years, do you think his ilk likes (physical) fighting? He (and the owners) are afraid they’ll lose fans which translates into dollars thrown to the wind. If he thought otherwise, he would push for a ban tomorrow afternoon.

I don’t want to see fighting completely done away with because, right or wrong, I still think there’s a deterrent factor involved that keeps barely checked idiots like Torres and Rinaldo slightly more checked. Seems like you could knock the staged fights out, or reduce them severely, by capping fights allowed, either at a team or a player level. Still there when “needed”, not there to be frivolous, and dummies who exist just to fight can be phased out.

Agree bull dog. That instigator rule is as stupid and backwards as it gets. Guys get destroyed on huge open ice hits (usually charging is called) and there is no retribution aside from the NHL’s wheel of justice and a minimal fine.

I like this quote by Yzerman. You can’t take head injuries and concussions seriously while simultaneously allowing guys to pummel each other’s skulls. Either you are being serious about it or you aren’t. Personally I think head injuries are a serious problem and if the NHL condones fighting they aren’t serious about addressing it.

_”Yes, I believe a player should get a game misconduct for fighting,” Yzerman told The Dreger Report. “We penalize and suspend players for making contact with the head while checking, in an effort to reduce head injuries, yet we still allow fighting._

_”We’re stuck in the middle and need to decide what kind of sport do we want to be. Either anything goes and we accept the consequences, or take the next step and eliminate fighting.”_

It just seems like all violent sports, which Hockey and Football definitely are, seem to be attempting to eliminate the seemingly purposeful violence while being completely unable to control the incidental violence, like head shots. The NFL is phasing out kick offs basically and it is a huge loss for the sport. The NHL will probably mandate full cages and a bunch of other garbage like eliminating fighting with enormous suspensions. And it will be bad.

The violence is an element of the game that the fans like and people have liked since the dawn of time in all cultures and all genders. People dig warriors. It’s a thing.

We just have to accept it as an inherent risk that these players, who are valuable assets for their owners, and adored commodities by the fans may suffer an injury doing what they love. But it’s the price they have agreed to pay for getting fame, fortune, chicks and one hell of a cool profession.

Unless it already has? We see a lot of bad hits, but ones like Cooke on Savard (awful intent, awful result) are thankfully pretty rare. My (perhaps empty) fear is that if you remove fighting and keep supplemental discipline as weak as it is, where now rather than Dorsett maybe chasing you down for a pummeling, the worst that can happen is some guys yell at you. Odds are there aren’t enough psychopaths in the league that Kaleta cheaping McDonagh would lead to Dorsett intentionally trying to kill Vanek, so its possible you give free reign to guys like Kaleta to really go unhinged under the guise of playing “intimidating” hockey. For all we know, this *is* him under control.

(Also, while I’m totally for reducing fights, I wish guys could come off the bench. When Cooke blindsides Savard or that guy who was friends with Girardi and whose name I already forgot flips an elbow up, maybe he should be dealt with on the spot.)

There are, however, (and always have been) a couple few semi-psychopaths in the NHL who should, when suspended, be ordered to be evaluated and be cleared by mental health professionals as part of their reinstatement.

The Doctor: Parros could have died. Blake Geoffrion could have died as well. I don’t know what to say. I’m not heartless for the people involved I’m just saying that many of us, pretty much everyone, face death every single day in some way. Many laborers do terrifying jobs and develop slow killing diseases through long term exposure to chemicals. Basically, we will all die and we will possibly die of a direct relationship to this world and the choices we have made. If someone dies on the ice, or is paralyzed, it’s a tragedy. I’m not saying they would have ended up paralyzed elsewhere. I’m not saying it is that person’s fate. I am saying that everyone risks death and injury and the life of a hockey player ain’t that bad. So let’s continue to enjoy all aspects of the game we absolutely love.

I get what you’re saying Manny, but most other professions don’t have people risking serious injury or death for nothing beyond the entertainment of others. I think the NHL (and NFL) are trying to get out in front of this because rather than have some people complain about losing fighting (or BIG HITS) while still liking the game itself, you’re risking a mass introspective turnoff if we witness a guy die.

(Or maybe I’m soft. I can barely watch games where players are coming back from concussions out of fear for them and my own fragile mind.)